How to get Silly Putty out of clothes – 7 day challenge

In theÂ 7 day challenge, todayâ€™s topic is: Write a blog post on the same topic as one of my most popular posts.

By far, in both page views and comments, my most popular post is one I wrote a little over two years ago about how my daughter smeared Desitin cream all over herself and everything she could get her hands on. After a failed internet search, I was pleading for a way to clean the goop up without wrecking the rug and blankets. Apparently, this is a common problem with 2 year olds. I’ve had a steady stream of visitorsÂ commenting, almost exclusively mothers of 2 year olds, some with suggestions and most with thanks for those who’ve already shared. (The most popular solution seems to be Dawn dish soap, but it depends on what’s affected. Here is the ‘chemist-approved’ solution.)

So I thought for today’s challenge I’d revisit the idea of helping mothers figure out how to clean frustrating things out of clothing.

This one’s not nearly as hard, but it is a source of pain at our house. And it’s my fault (or so my wife thinks) because I supplied the material to the kids.

I really enjoyed Silly Putty as a kid. Heck, I still enjoy it today. It’s a fun ball of goo! What’s not to like?

This summer our street participated in a neighborhood yard sale, and one of our neighbors had a bunch of Silly Putty for a ridiculously cheap price – so we got a couple. Then my kids played with it and had a good time. Awesome.

Then my kids lost the “egg” containers and the putty began to be left around the house. Not so awesome. Not only did it start picking up pieces of fabric (annoying, but not a big deal), it started leaving pieces of itself in different fabrics. That’s when my wife got annoyed.

She tried freezing the putty encrusted clothing and then breaking it off, with limited success. I’m honestly not sure if she tried anything else, but the clothes eventually disappeared from the freezer, so she either succeeded, gave up, or threw the clothes out. I really wasn’t paying attention, so I don’t know. And I don’t want to ask.

For some reason I didn’t think to search the web for the best way to clean this stuff, but now that I have I’ve found this article on eHow, which boils down to this:

Pull the material taut.

Soak a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol and rub it on the putty until it won’t accept any more.

Use a butter knife to scrape the Silly Putty off.

Wash the clothes.

There you go. Done.

It also says you can use WD-40, but that may damage the fabric, so test first if you want to do that.